How does society change?

Does society change by people changing their minds? Or does it happen by old beliefs literally dying?

Two charts from @RobertDPutnam and @shaylynromney’s recent book “Upswing” that track changes in support for gender equality are very striking

The first chart shows a steady progression in American support for gender equality based on a number of issues. The so-called steady march of progress

Compare that to this chart of gender equality support broken down by when people were born.

Even though society changed, people’s opinions didn’t

Society changed not by people changing their minds, it changed from people dying and new people being born into new norms

There are pessimistic/fatalistic ways of interpreting this. I see three truths:

1) We’re all a product of our culture/time
2) Our opinions are more fixed than we’d like to believe
3) Cultural battles are just as much about shaping the future as they are the present